Marie Rimmer MP , Han Fei, Hui Li, Tian Xin, Professor Baroness Finlay – with contributions to the Hearing from David Matas and Eleanor Stephenson, lawyers specialising in international human rights law and international criminal law.
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Falun Gong: A Sickening Persecution – Lord Alton of Liverpool. 5th November 2024
This year marks 25 years of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in China.
In China, practitioners of Falun Gong are subject to mass surveillance, arbitrary arrests, forced labour, torture, rape, brainwashing, they are forced to denounce their beliefs and even subjected to forced organ harvesting – where the Falun Gong practitioner will die in the process of having their organs extracted for use in transplantation.
A quarter of a century of atrocities, that will, inevitably, to quote Sir Geoffrey Nice KC during the China Tribunal Judgment summary,
“be likened to the worst atrocities committed in conflicts of the 20th century; but victim for victim and death for death, the gassing of the Jews by the Nazis, the massacre by the Khmer Rouge or the butchery to death of the Rwanda Tutsis may not be worse than cutting out the hearts, other organs and the very souls of living, blameless, harmless, peaceable people.”
I have spoken many times over the years in the House about the plight of Falun Gong as well as the atrocities of forced organ harvesting. I am therefore honoured to be sat here with my good friend Marie Rimmer, who has also been dedicated to this issue, as well to have in the audience my Right Hon friend, Lord Hunt. The remarkable efforts between them, which I gladly supported, initiated a change in UK law to prevent commercial organ tourism to countries such as China.
In August this year, forced organ harvesting made news headlines again, when Cheng Peiming, a 59-year-old Falun Gong practitioner and the first known survivor of forced organ harvesting in China, shared his story at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
In November 2004, while serving an eight-year sentence for practicing Falun Gong, Cheng was taken to a hospital and forcibly anesthetized. He awoke three days later, shackled to a hospital bed, with a 14-inch incision on the left side of his body. It wasn’t until after Peiming escaped to the United States in 2018 and later underwent medical tests that he discovered part of his liver and lung had been removed.
On 3rd September this year, 20 years after the forced surgery, Cheng said, “The 35-centimeter scar on my left rib cage throbs with every beat of my pulse”.
Following Cheng’s public testimony, the CCP issued a widely circulated statement attempting to discredit Cheng but which inadvertently confirmed key details of his account. The statement confirms that Cheng was indeed detained for his practice of Falun Gong and that Cheng was forced to undergo surgery. However, the statement claimed the surgery was to remove a nail Cheng had swallowed—an explanation that physicians say does not justify such a large incision nor the removal of part of his liver and lung.
In addition to the surgery Cheng was forced to undergo, he was given a lengthy eight-year sentence and severely tortured. He managed to escape from prison in 2006 and was later rescued thanks to the efforts of Robert Destro, then US Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Democracy and Labor. Cheng’s case serves as a reminder of the horrors Falun Gong practitioners in China still face and the urgent need for an international response.
To date, over 5,000 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners dying due to persecution have been reported. But in a country where prisoners of conscience have their organs forcibly harvested and then, their remains incinerated to destroy all evidence – this can only be the very tip of the iceberg, we have no idea how many undocumented deaths there have may been.
Outside of China, the Chinese Communist Party also targets Falun Gong. They use disinformation and propaganda, harassment, surveillance, cyber-attacks, diplomatic pressure, threats, physical attacks and have made efforts to extradite and even abduct Falun Gong practitioners living abroad.
According to leaked CCP documents, congressional testimonies from former Chinese diplomats, and third-party investigations, the CCP has enacted operations around the world to silence, marginalize, and suppress Falun Gong since the launch of the persecution in 1999.
Mr. Chen Yonglin, the former first secretary of the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, who defected to Australia in 2005 was the first to reveal the full scope of the CCP’s actions abroad. He testified before US Congress that the top priority of every Chinese consulate and embassy around the world is to systematically “wage war” against Falun Gong outside of China. He said,
“Each consulate and embassy has a ‘Special Anti-Falun Gong Working Group’ that works closely with the United Front Work Department, an organisation under the CCP. The United Front uses the overseas Chinese diaspora, including students, businesspeople, media, and so-called ‘Chinese community groups’ to influence, manipulate, and pressure foreign citizens, politicians, and business leaders to toe the party line on Falun Gong.”
Mr Chen notes that each Chinese consulate or embassy implements many tactics to block support for Falun Gong, including:
- Widely spreading anti-Falun Gong propaganda in host countries to demonise Falun Gong;
- Funding, and otherwise controlling, Chinese-language publications within the local Chinese community;
- Using Chinese immigrants and students to monitor and report on Falun Gong activities in local communities and on campuses;
- Pressuring local officials and subjecting them to economic threats or incentives.
Within the past two years, the CCP has launched more overt campaigns to suppress the Falun Gong diaspora around the world. This is apparent through street violence, attempts at soft power subversion, and attacks on media outlets and organisations founded by Falun Gong practitioners. These operations continue today.
Last year, the UK Intelligence and Security Committee of parliament published a damning report on China. The report says that China has penetrated ‘every sector’ of the UK’s economy, while recognising that Falun Gong is perceived by the CCP as one of the greatest domestic threats to its rule.
Newly leaked CCP documents reveal a worldwide disinformation campaign to try to “eliminate” Falun Gong and Shen Yun globally.
The leaked information describes a strategic decision by the regime’s security apparatus to escalate its persecution of Falun Gong around the world and outlines detailed plans to turn global public opinion against Falun Gong and Shen Yun via a multi-pronged information manipulation campaign.
Attacks on Shen Yun, as a way to target Falun Gong, have taken place since its inception. In every country Shen Yun has visited, including the UK, theatres have been pressured by the local Chinese Embassy to stop the performance.
Previously, Shen Yun tour bus tires have been slashed in Canada and the US. This year, this escalated to bomb threats at one theatre in California. A day before the show there, the theatre received an email stating:
“We randomly placed a lot of bombs in the theatre. If you don’t want us to detonate the bombs, please refuse Shen Yun Performing Arts to perform here immediately!”
Mercifully, after the theatre was evacuated, no bomb was found. But the lengths the CCP and its agents will go to repress the Falun Gong community is astounding.
It is more important than ever that our government takes a strong stand against the Chinese Communist Party’s bullying and propaganda tactics – and even more critically, a stand against the ongoing human rights atrocities faced by the people of China. No one should have to face imprisonment, torture nor butchery because of their religious or spiritual beliefs.
Han Fei and Tian Xin – who described to the Hearing first hand experience of imprisonment, torture, and persecution.
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Falun Gong, Forced Organ Harvesting in China, and how this directly affects the UK
Remarks by lawyer Eleanor Stephenson
Committee Room G in the House of Lords
5 November 2024
What can the actions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) teach us and why is this knowledge essential for our new government?
For decades, Western governments have pursued a policy of strategic cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in the hope that the CCP would open up and move towards democracy. If anything, however, they have become more openly authoritarian, both at home as well as in the UK.
The fundamental nature of the CCP, and their intention to achieve dominance in the world, has been consistent. After 25 years of human rights atrocities committed against Falun Gong, we have learned a lot. This seminar explores how this issue not only affects China, but also how it +directly affects the UK.
We will also discuss the UK’s response to these atrocities in China, including a commitment to end forced organ harvesting and how to prevent UK complicity from the perspective of international law.
With our new government, the UK is at a crossroads with China and this is the perfect time to gain a better understanding of the nature of the Chinese regime in order to develop an appropriate relationship with China while still protecting and preserving our own interests and values.
I am briefly going to talk about a new way we are trying to tackle the issue.
But to provide some background as to some of the successes to date: We had the China Tribunal in 2019 and Sir Geoffrey Nice in his Judgment confirmed that FOH constitutes a crime against humanity, There has been good progress in the UK in terms of law reform, the US are close to bringing in the Stop the Forced Organ Harvesting Act and there have been resolutions brought by the European Parliament. We have considered asking the ICC to bring a case but it is isn’t a simple thing to do.
So international pressure has made some headway but nevertheless the practice is ongoing.
So another approach that we are taking now is to look at ways we can create pressure on the CCP from inside China. We are doing this via looking at ways the western medical sector is facilitating FOH. If we can find collaborations with China and dismantle those partnerships that in turn will ostracize the Chinese medical community from the international one and they will not like that.
To provide some context:
Forced organ harvesting operations controlled by the State cannot operate without facilitation from others both inside and outside of China.
You need:
Surgeons to perform the operations.
You need Nurses to support the Surgeons
Drugs must be supplied for the operations, such as immunosuppressant drugs.
Devices like organ preservation devices may need to be supplied.
You also have clinical research labs carrying out research on organs that have been sourced unethically, and then the research is published in western medical journals.
So you have:
Chinese surgeons being trained by western surgeons and then going back to perform forced organ harvesting operations.
You have:
Transplantation Societies inviting large numbers of Chinese surgeons to conferences where they learn and knowledge share
Universities training students who go back and work in these operations
Pfizer and Roche Holdings profiting hugely from selling to China. Logic and common-sense dictate that if FOH is being conducted on the scale it is, and the scale is huge – there are lanes in airports for the expeditious transfer of organs – and that these drug companies are selling on the scale that they are, its inevitable that at least some of the supplies will end up in the forced organ harvesting operations.
We recently tried to bring an amendment in the new UK procurement act which would have forced companies to do due diligence on their supply chains but the Government fought us all the way and decided it was too onerous on businesses.
In 2022, my NGO commissioned Global Rights Compliance to produce a world’s first Legal Advisory setting out the legal risks to organ transplantation professionals. It states that China is a high-risk country and tells professionals what they need to do to avoid being caught up in an investigation and when they should disengage from a partnership.
It sets out the international law governing this area and that is, in summary,
That an actor aids, abets or otherwise assists the commission of crimes against humanity if the actor knowingly or purposefully provides practical assistance or encouragement that has a substantial effect on the commission of a crime. It doesn’t matter when or where the assistance took place. As long as it assists. It doesn’t matter that the accused isn’t there at the time of the crime.
It is likely that any defendant would say “I did not intend for the crime to occur and we regret its commission” but, actually, if it can be shown that they should have known that they were providing assistance that would be sufficient. Knowledge can be inferred from all relevant circumstances. Staying wilfully blind is unlikely to result in success.
So, if a medical professional provides clinical training to transplant surgeons who are likely to be involved with forced organ harvesting, because, for example, they work in a state hospital, that training could amount to complicity. The clinical training has a substantial effect on the crime. It is practical assistance. A defendant does not need to have knowledge of the precise crime that will be committed.
In the case of drug companies, the executives could be prosecuted. In 2021 four executives of a French surveillance company were prosecuted for facilitating torture and enforced disappearance through the sale of surveillance technology to the Libyan and Egyptian governments which was used to track down opponents.
Medical institutions, therefore, have to be extremely vigilant.
These prosecutions could be brought in national courts using the principal of universal jurisdiction.
So there are risks to the medical professionals and medical institutions in this field.
Now the way that these individuals and corporations can avoid prosecution is to do proper due diligence before entering a collaboration. If despite doing the due diligence they still got caught up in forced organ harvesting they could then rely on the fact that they did the due diligence as a defence.
The sort of due diligence that is required is to create a publicly available human right statements and policy, to provide training in their organisations to staff, ask themselves and the partner company specific questions tailored to their specific sector to see if there are any risks there and make informed decisions
Examples of red flags could be:
In the case of journals accepting research, that there is no credible evidence to say the organs are sourced ethically. There is no documentation demonstrating the free voluntary and informed consent of donors.
In the case of a hospital exchange program, does the trainee come from a hospital which is reported to carry out forced organ harvesting operations or does the hospital advertise the option to receive organs with pre-determined waiting times.
If companies and individuals do their due diligence, inevitably supply chains will begin to change and attitudes will begin to change. Chinese doctors will not be invited to the conferences anymore. It is important for them to go to these conferences. They are prestigious. They will not like being ostracised. Similarly for researchers who have their papers rejected from reputable journals. In turn they will complain internally about that.
So applying pressure on the Chinese medical community is a must. We need to show the Chinese physicians that there is spotlight on them.
Things are beginning to change. There have been some significant moves by certain medical. But there is still a general complacency to act.
The next steps are to find out about more collaborations and apply pressure.
Freedom of information requests have been sent to [universities to see what collaborations they have with medical and research organisations in China]. A written parliamentary question was sent to the former government asking about government funded universities, but the response was inadequate.
So we need political will. The new government can help us by backing legislation designed to stop complicity. They can support us by assisting us in finding out about the collaborations.
When we tried to pass the last amendment to make companies look at their supply chains the former Government opposed us and said things such as “there is no evidence that supplies end up in FOH operations”. It was just incredibly unhelpful and showed they were not willing to engage on the issue. Of course there is no evidence of it because China doesn’t let anyone in to investigate and the companies are not at this moment in time obliged to report on what they’re doing. So we need to the new Government to stand behind us.
Now everyone has to act: not just the medical professionals but the UK government. Otherwise unless they act now the institutions and those that work in them may well find themselves associated with crimes against humanity and of course the effect of that would be hugely devastating.
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Organ transplant abuse in China: A plan of action for the UK
(Remarks prepared for presentation at the House of Lords, November 5, 2024)
by David Matas
China is engaged in the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs. The primary victims, since 2001, have been practitioners of the spiritually based set of exercises Falun Gong. Also victims in significant numbers have been Uyhgurs since 2017. In smaller numbers have been Tibetans and House Christians.
The evidence of this abuse is overwhelming, establishing this abuse beyond any reasonable doubt. One significant component of that evidence is the judgment of the China Tribunal of 2020. Tribunal proceedings were held here in London, and were chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice.1
I want to present here a plan of action for the UK to combat organ transplant abuse in China. The plan of action has two components. One is prohibiting UK complicity in organ transplant abuse in China. The other is contributing to the effort to end transplant abuse in China.
Prohibiting UK complicity is entirely within the control of the UK. Ending transplant abuse in China is something only China can do. The UK can, nonetheless, contribute to the effort to end in China that abuse.
A. Preventing complicity
Prosecution
The UK Parliament enacted prosecution legislation in 2022. The 2004 Human Tissues Act prohibits commercial dealings in human material for transplantation.2 The Health and Care Act 2022 amended the Human Tissues Act to add a provision to extend the scope of the original prohibition to offences committed outside the UK by those habitually resident in England and Wales, or by UK nationals not habitually resident in Northern Ireland.3
There is no reason why the law has to be so limited. In principle, Parliament could enact a law which applies to foreigners who committed their crimes abroad, as long as subsequently they show up in the United Kingdom. The UK has that sort of legislation now for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
Forced organ harvesting directed against prisoners of conscience is arguably a crime against humanity, and a genocide as a mass killing of part of the group to which the victims belong. Nonetheless, rather than leave the matter to interpretation and debate, the criminal law of forced organ harvesting could and should be extended to any person within the jurisdiction of the UK, no matter where the offence was committed.
Mandatory legal reporting
The criminal prohibition is accordingly in place. Yet, to make it work, there has to be reporting of transplant tourism from health professionals to Government officials. That reporting can be affected by legislation.
Transplant tourists require continuing medical care on return because they continue to need anti-rejection drugs. However, that continuing care would be subject to health professional patient confidentiality unless there is a standard providing an exception to that confidentiality.
That confidentiality means that, even if the extra-territorial offence legislated in 2022 exists, it becomes unenforceable without an exception to confidentiality. So, one element of the plan of action to combat UK complicity in organ transplant abuse in China is the need to establish an exception to that blanket health professional patient confidentiality.
Mandatory ethical reporting
Mandatory reporting of transplant tourism from health professionals to government authorities responsible for the enforcement of the extra-territorial forced organ harvesting law can be effected by professional ethical standards as well as by law. In the UK, there is no legislation requiring reporting of gunshot and knife wounds. The General Medical Council has developed an elaborate multi-page guidance on the reporting by doctors to the police of gunshot and knife wounds.4
Unless and until there is legislation on mandatory reporting by health professionals to the relevant government authorities of transplant tourism, something similar to the General Medical Council guidance on reporting of gunshot and knife wounds could and should be developed on reporting of transplant tourism. There should be equivalent professional ethical standards developed for nurses and pharmacists.
Health insurance coverage
In principle, health insurance coverage should not be allowed to cover transplant tourism. Yet, right now in the UK there is nothing prohibiting that coverage.
Health coverage in the UK for treatment abroad can be, in limited circumstances, public and, in broader circumstances, private. The UK needs legislation to prevent that coverage from encompassing the sort of organ transplant abuse prohibited by the Health Care Act. The prohibition should encompass private as well as public insurance coverage.
Immigration ban
The UK should prohibit entry to the UK of anyone complicit in organ transplant abuse abroad. That prohibition, if it existed, would prevent entry not just for tourism, but also for lectures, exchanges, conferences, and training. Again, right now, that prohibition, specific to organ transplant abuse, does not exist.
There is a generic prohibition on entry where a person has committed a criminal offence abroad which has caused serious harm.5 There is no doubt that killing someone for their organs is serious harm.
Yet this is an offence which no one person commits alone. The act rather is broken down into a number of component parts with different actors. Each person in the chain is complicit in the offence. To avoid any question whether complicity fits within the immigration ban, the matter should be addressed explicitly.
Supply chains
Forced organ harvesting involves more than just perpetrators. It involves the machinery of death.
For forced organ harvesting to occur, there has to be a transplant hospital or a transplant wing of a hospital. There needs to be anti-rejection drugs. For the transportation of organs, there needs to be refrigeration and liquid immersion. ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation) machines keep organs alive after they have ceased to function naturally.
Lord Hunt proposed in 2023 in the House of Lords an amendment to a Government procurement bill which would have granted Government officials discretionary power to a exclude a supplier from Government contracts if the supplier or a connected person was or is involved in forced organ harvesting or dealing in any device or equipment or services relating to forced organ harvesting. The proposed amendment was adopted in the House of Lords but rejected in the House of Commons. In advocating against the amendment in the Commons, the Government spokesperson raised a number of theoretical objections, all of which have answers.6 The initiative of Lord Hunt is worth pursuing.
End collaboration
Even without legislation, all elements of UK society should avoid complicity with organ transplant abuse in China with prisoner of conscience victims. Avoiding complicity means avoiding collaboration which facilitates the abuse.
UK hospitals, doctors and nurses should not be training doctors or nurses to engage in transplantation in China. UK health professionals should not be going to China for transplantation conferences, training or presentations. Chinese transplant professionals should not be invited to attend conferences, give lectures or participate in training in the UK. UK medical journals should not be publishing Chinese transplant research unless the sourcing of organs referenced in the research is verifiably clear and proper. Global Rights Compliance has published a Policy Guidance and a Legal Advisory Report both titled “Do no harm” which provide guidance and advice on mitigating risks of complicity in organ transplant abuse in China through the exercise of due diligence.7
Sanctions
The United Kingdom, under the umbrella of its sanctions legislation,8 has both corruption and human rights sanctions. There are over 4,600 individuals and entities sanctioned.9 Yet there are, from what I can see, no sanctions listed for those complicit in forced organ harvesting.
This absence in the listing is not the result of an absence of candidates. There is a good number of them and plenty of evidence against them. The UK sanctions regime needs to direct its attention to at least some of the forced organ harvesting culprits.
An exception to sovereign immunity
The United Kingdom has a State Immunity Act from 1978 which gives both civil and criminal immunity to foreign state organs. Whether individuals acting for the state have immunity is not addressed. That gap has nonetheless been filled by the common law, which has found that individuals acting for a foreign state organ have the same civil and criminal immunity that the state organ for which they act does. When a state acts, it acts, after all, through individuals.
Even though the current UK criminal law is limited to those habitually resident in England and Wales and UK nationals, visiting foreigners, as noted, can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity and genocide, and forced organ harvesting arguably falls within those categories.
Forced organ harvesting is, in China, a crime of the state. The slaughter of innocents is organized through state institutions – the police, who detain the victims, the prisons and the state health system, including the state military hospitals. The targeted victims are demonized, dehumanized and depersonalized by state institutions.
The perpetrators, if prosecuted in the UK for their crimes or sued civilly by the representatives of victims, should not be able to claim state immunity. The State Immunity Act should be amended to make that clear.
Persona non grata
The United Kingdom does not need legal exceptions from state immunity in order to address civil or criminal liability of Chinese state agents present in the United Kingdom. The Government of the UK can declare any Chinese state agent in the UK who is complicit in forced organ harvesting persona non grata. That declaration means that the state agent with immunity must leave the UK or not enter, if not already in the UK.
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 provides:
“The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable. In any such case, the sending State shall, as appropriate, either recall the person concerned or terminate his functions with the mission. A person may be declared non grata or not acceptable before arriving in the territory of the receiving State.
If the sending State refuses or fails within a reasonable period to carry out its obligations under paragraph 1 of this article, the receiving State may refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission.”10
Although threre is no need to explain a declaration that a person is persona non grata, the UK government should give such an explanation where that declaration is made because the individual is complicit in forced organ harvesting. Such declarations should also be made for those still in China who are complicit in the abuse and who otherwise might become members of the Chinese diplomatic mission in the UK. The Government of the UK should indicate in advance of any such declaration that it intends to declare Chinese members of diplomatic missions, as well as those in China who might otherwise become members of diplomatic missions, persona non grata those complicit in organ transplant abuse in China with prisoner of conscience victims.
Bodies exhibit
Those responsible for plastinated bodies exhibits, where the bodies are sourced from China, are unable to establish the sourcing of those bodies. There is evidence establishing that the sourcing of these plastinated bodies from China is prisoners of conscience.
Current UK law requires consent before death for public display of bodies after death only if the death occurs in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. For imported bodies, there is no legal consent requirement.11
The UK Human Tissue Authority Code of Practice and Standards provides:
“Anyone removing, storing or using bodies or body parts imported for the purpose of public display … should ensure that they have been sourced legally in the country of origin and the person whose body or body parts are intended for public display has given consent for this purpose.”12
That provision, while welcome, is not the same as a legal requirement. Lord Hunt in 2019 and 2021 introduced into the House of Lords a private member’s bill that would impose the same consent requirements for imported cadavers used in exhibitions as exist for UK‑sourced cadavers. The UK Parliament should enact that proposed legislation.
Council of Europe Convention
The Council of Europe has a Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs which has entered into force. The Convention requires states parties to establish as a criminal offence organ trafficking and transplant tourism.13 The offence would have to apply to citizens and permanent residents who engage in those abuses abroad.
The United Kingdom signed the Convention the very first day it was open for signature March 25, 2015. Nine years later the UK has yet to ratify the Convention. The 2022 legislation appears to put the UK in compliance with the Convention obligation to legislate the necessary prohibition. Signature indicates an intention to ratify. It is not clear why there has been this hesitation over ratification.
Ratification would be more than a formality. Ratification would allow the UK to join the other states parties to the Convention in working together in combatting organ trafficking and transplant tourism. Now that the requisite legislation is in place, the UK should ratify the Convention.
B. Ending Abuse
Human rights dialogues
A bilateral human rights dialogue between the UK and China can be frustrating. A report by a Canadian academic and consultant, Charles Burton, noted these concerns about the Canada Chinese human rights dialogue:
• The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes up much of the dialogues reading scripts. These scripts are repeated at the dialogues of the various countries over the years.
• There is little connection established between the dialogues and progress on the ground; it is difficult to determine benchmarks or other objective indicators of success.
• The Chinese Ministry is showing less commitment to the dialogues by downgrading the level of head of delegation and reducing staff in their Human Rights Division.
• The rise of nationalism in China concomitant with China’s economic rise to power has made the Chinese Government unwilling to be chastised over human rights any more.
• The Chinese side tends to drag its feet in making dialogue arrangements sending out a signal that the western nations are the demandeurs in this instance.
• The Chinese response to the lists of cases of concern is not as complete as Canada expects it should be and degree of responsiveness varies significantly year by year.
• There is a pervasive cynicism about the process and dialogue fatigue has set in.14
Nonetheless, a bilateral human rights dialogue with China, where the mass killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs is consistently and continuously raised, has its value. It sends a message that the UK knows about the abuse and will not forget about it just because of Chinese Government denials, obfuscations and run arounds. What matters more than placating the criminals and their fellow travellers is the memory of the victims.
UN Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council provides a number of opportunities and mechanisms to raise concerns about organ transplant abuse in China. The UK should take advantage of those opportunities.
Twelve UN human rights experts wrote to the Government of China on June 10, 2021 expressing
“Utmost concern at the alleged regular and forced medical examination targeting ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities such as Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians in detention, without their consent; and the alleged enforced disappearance of some detainees, which appears to be related to the allegedly illegal acquisition organ trafficking.”15
This communication was followed by a press release four days later expressing alarm at the organ harvesting allegations in China.16 The Government of China responded to the UN human rights experts on September 10th,17 2021 with the usual nonsense.18
This statement by a consolidated group of UN human rights experts nonetheless presents an opportunity for the UK and other like minded states in concert to pursue the expert initiative. One is a public joint letter written by the UK and other like minded states addressed to the High Commissioner for Human Rights echoing the concerns of the human rights experts.
A second is joining in a proposed Council resolution on the subject. A third is joining in a proposal to the Council for a special session on forced organ harvesting in China. The United Kingdom is not currently a member of the Council and can not either move resolutions or vote on them. It can nonetheless co-sponsor resolutions and speak on them.
Because China and their friends have now stacked the Human Rights Council with voting member states supportive of China, resolutions expressing concern about Chinese human rights violations are unlikely to succeed. However, one opportunity that always remains available is statements.
In the immediately previous session of the UN Human Rights Council in September, the United Kingdom made a statement on the item of the agenda titled “The human rights situations that require the Council’s attention”.19 That statement included these words about China:
“In Xinjiang, we echo the statement made earlier by the US, while in Hong Kong, we call on the authorities to end politically motivated prosecutions, immediately release Jimmy Lai and cease attempts to apply Hong Kong law extra‑territorially, including to individuals in the UK. China must uphold its human rights obligations.”
It would be a simple matter, at the next and ensuing sessions of the Council to add to its statement these words or something to similar effect:
“we echo the concerns expressed by the UN human rights experts made in June 2021 about forced organ harvesting in China with prisoner of conscience victims and call on the Government of China to provide a more meaningful response than it did in September 2021”.
UN Security Council
The United Kingdom is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. China is not a state party to the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. Nonetheless, the Court has jurisdiction over situations in which one or more crimes within the Court mandate appears to have been committed which are referred to the Court Prosecutor by the Security Council.20
The United Kingdom could ask the Security Council to refer to the Court Prosecutor the situation of forced organ harvesting in China with prisoner of conscience victims. Such a request, even if there are enough votes in the Council to have the request endorsed by the Council, is almost certainly to be vetoed by China. Nonetheless, the request is worth making if for no other reason than to draw attention to the abuse and remind China that, they may be able to veto, they can not hide what they are doing.
UN General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly Third Committee in recent years has been the forum of a number of joint statements criticising human rights violations in China. The United Kingdom has signed on to these joint statements and, in 2023, delivered one on behalf of the group.21 The Government of China has responded to these joint statements with its usual blather.22
These statements too represent an opportunity to show China that, despite their implausible reactions, concerns remain. Next time round, the UK should make every effort to ensure that the joint statement refers to concerns about forced organ harvesting in China with prisoner of conscience victims.
Conclusion
As long as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains in power in China, one can expect the Government of China never to admit that forced organ harvesting with prisoner of conscience victims is happening or has happened. That does not mean, however, that the abuse is destined to stop only after a regime change.
The primary concern of the CCP is not forced organ harvesting with prisoner of conscience victims. The primary concern of the CCP is rather the CCP, the mainenance in power in China of the CCP. Forced organ harvesting with prisoner of conscience victims is happening now in China because the political benefit for the CCP for that abuse is greater than the political cost. If the equation is reversed, if the political cost of the abuse is greater than the political benefit, the CCP will end the abuse. It is up to the UK and other like minded states to change that CCP equation, to increase the political cost the CCP bears from the abuse.
The United Kingdom has made progress in addressing organ transplant abuse in China through its 2022 legislation and its Human Tissue Authority Code of Practice and Standards on Public Display. There is nonetheless a lot more that could be done. The UK, from its previous initiatives, looks to be pointed in the right direction. The Government and Parliament need to keep on moving.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..David Matas is an international human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
2 Section 32
3 Section 32A
4 https://www.gmc‑uk.org/‑/media/documents/gmc‑guidance‑for‑doctors‑‑‑confidentiality‑‑‑reporting‑gunshot‑and‑knife‑wounds_pdf‑70063779.pdf
5 Immigration Rules Part 9 Rule 9.4.1.(c)
6 https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023‑09‑13/debates/72FC2B5F‑2B7D‑46D6‑899E‑19CF4FCF2BDA/ProcurementBill(Lords)
7 https://endtransplantabuse.org/international-law-firm-global-rights-compliance-publish-legal-advisory-report-and-policy-guidance-do-no-harm/
8 The Sanctions and Anti‑Money Laundering Act
9 https://search‑uk‑sanctions‑list.service.gov.uk/
10 Human Tissue Authority, Code of Practice and Standards, Public Display, paragraph 65
lhttps://content.hta.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023‑06/Code%20D%20‑%20Public%20Display.pdf
11 https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2019‑02‑27/debates/941C59AA‑1D9E‑4077‑AE25‑16F48F844AD8/HumanBodiesCommercialExhibition
12 Human Tissue Authority, Code of Practice and Standards, Public Display, paragraph 65
https://content.hta.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023‑06/Code%20D%20‑%20Public%20Display.pdf
13 Articles 4,5, 7 and 8
14 “Assessment of the Canada‑China Bilateral Human Rights
Dialogue”, April 19, 2006
15 https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=26382
16 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=27167&LangID=E
17 https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=36489
18 https://endtransplantabuse.org/wp‑content/uploads/2022/04/Joint‑Letter‑from‑65‑Organisations‑to‑United‑Nations‑Special‑Rapporteurs__ForcedOrganHarvesingInChina_April_2022_signed.pdf
20 Court statute Article 13 (b)
21 For the 2021 joint statement see
For the 2022 joint statement see
For the 2023 joint statement see
For the 2024 joint statement see
22 For 2021, see
http://un.china‑mission.gov.cn/eng/chinaandun/socialhr/202110/t20211022_9607296.htm
For 2022, see
http://un.china‑mission.gov.cn/eng/chinaandun/socialhr/3rdcommittee/202211/t20221101_10794920.htm
For 2023, see
http://un.china‑mission.gov.cn/eng/chinaandun/socialhr/3rdcommittee/202310/t20231018_11162597.htm
